Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31398341-20170409101440/@comment-31398341-20170414113253

Trevastyah wrote: What do you think of Tentacruel?

It has a pretty good Sp. Def and Speed. It can be a good support or front-liner. It has the ability liquid ooze which can counter drainers. It can learn Rapid spin, Toxic Spikes and knock off. Def. is a problem tho. It resist Fighting, Poison, Bug, Fairy, Fire, Ice, Steel and Water. Types like Ground, Psychic (Probably because most of psychic types have typicaly very high sp. atk)  can OHKO this thing. Electric, sure it can tank some of them but it usually results in 2 shots. Its role as water type spinner makes me compare with Starmie from first glance.

Tentacruel

- Noticeable higher SpDef

- Can use toxic spikes

- Can absorb toxic spikes without using Rapid Spin

- Liquid Ooze (small niche)

- Slightly better defensive typing

- Disappointingly low Phys. Def for defensive pokemon, making it 2HKOed by physical moves

- Low SpAtk makes it hard to check pokemon that it supposed to

- No instant recovery moves available

Starmie

- Far higher SpAtk

- Higher speed

- Has more coverage moves

- Better offensive presence

- Unable to tank even x1 powerful hits. Most moves can 2HKO it

- Two useful abilities : Natural cure for both offensive and defensive sets and Analytic for offensive

Overall Starmie do better offensively while Tentacruel do better defensively. However, Tentacruel often struggles with pokemon that it supposed to check, such as M-Lopunny and M-Heracross. It also cannot counter gengar due to low SpAtk and no recovery moves (3HKOed by Gengar). Tenta can use toxic spikes and rapid spin as its main niche though.

Tentacruel : Unranked >>> C